Julius Alsandor has few illusions about the obstacles that immediately confront his administration when he officially becomes the new Opelousas mayor on Wednesday.

If there is any comforting aspect about removing what he calls an “ominous cloud” affecting the city during his initial months as mayor, Alsandor says he realizes it’s that he won’t have to seek the necessary changes that he envisions entirely on his own.

Alsandor will be part of an almost total municipal facelift that includes his first mayoral term. The Board of Aldermen – the city’s six-member legislative body – has four individuals serving their first terms in addition to a newly elected police chief.

When he convenes his first official city meeting as mayor on Jan. 8, Alsandor says he understands there will be much work to do.

Opelousas at the start of 2019, Alsandor acknowledges, features a number of serious problems that include a moribund downtown business section, lack of a comprehensive street rehabilitation program that has been ignored for almost two decades and aging infrastructure that was also neglected.

“Fixing the streets, uplifting our infrastructure and ridding the city of unwanted blight are things that cannot be done overnight.

“It is going to take hard work, tough decisions and most of all, time,” Alsandor said in an interview.

Most of the money used to accomplish those problems will be solved primarily by sales and property taxes.

In addition, retail stores in parts of Opelousas began collecting an additional one-cent sales tax on Tuesday as part of a Downtown Development Authority initiative.

The DDA’s appointed commissioners will use the proceeds to improve lighting and address other downtown infrastructure issues city officials hope will enhance a business district which has been almost totally without substantial commerce for decades.

The additional penny tax, approved by the state legislature and collected by the DDA, lifts the sales tax at some stores to 11.2 cents. The tax could bring in about $500,000 annually, according to Bil Rodier, executive director of the St. Landry Parish Economic Development District.

Alsandor said he also plans to aggressively pursue other revenue sources.

“We are going to work closely with our legislators in order to obtain grants and continuously lobby our legislature,” he said.

In the December runoff election, Alsandor received an overwhelming mandate to begin addressing the city’s issues, defeating Tyrone Glover, an alderman that Alsandor sat beside at meetings for the last four years.

Alsandor said he doesn’t plan to use that decisive mandate to monopolize the decision-making process.

As he takes office, Alsandor said he wants more of a collaborative effort on the part of the administration, one that also includes input from the aldermen and the citizens. During his past four years as an alderman, Alsandor was often critical of the administration for what he perceived as a lack of inclusion between the mayor’s office and the aldermen.

“We must become something like a trinity – a unity that includes the administration, the aldermen and the people of Opelousas. (Opelousas) will not move forward if we don’t exhibit that kind of attitude as we attempt to solve problems,” said Alsandor.